Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to a method of cyclic dry etching of a layer constituted by silicon or metal oxide, for example.
Description of the Related Art
Atomic layer etching (ALE) is cyclic, atomic layer-level etching using an etchant gas adsorbed on a target film and reacted with excited reaction species, as disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-open Publication No. 2013-235912 and No. 2014-522104. As compared with conventional etching technology, ALE can perform precise, atomic layer-level continuous etching on a sub-nanometer order to form fine, narrow convex-concave patterns and may be suitable for, e.g., double-patterning processes. As an etchant gas, Cl2, HCl, CHF3, CH2F2, CH3F, H2, BCL3, SiCl4, Br2, HBr, NF3, CF4, C2F6, C4F8, SF6, O2, SO2, COS, etc. are known. However, it is revealed that in-plane uniformity of etching of a film on a substrate by ALE is not satisfactory when etching an oxide mineral film such as silicon oxide film.
When etching Si or GaAs by ALE using Cl2 as an etchant gas, relatively good in-plane uniformity of etching can be obtained. However, when etching a silicon oxide film by ALE using a fluorocarbon such as C4F8 as an etchant gas, good in-plane uniformity of etching is not obtained. This is because the etchant gas is adsorbed on a surface of a substrate through physical adsorption, not chemical adsorption, despite the fact that conventionally, the adsorption of an etchant gas is sometimes called “chemisorption.” That is, conventional ALE etches a metal or silicon oxide film by etchant gas physically adsorbed on its surface, wherein the adsorbed etchant gas reacts with excited species, and also by etchant gas which remains in the reaction space after being purged, causing gas-phase etching. As a result, in-plane uniformity of etching suffers. If an etchant gas is chemisorbed on a surface of a substrate, the adsorption is “chemisorption” which is chemical saturation adsorption which is a self-limiting adsorption reaction process, wherein the amount of deposited etchant gas molecules is determined by the number of reactive surface sites and is independent of the precursor exposure after saturation, and a supply of the etchant gas is such that the reactive surface sites are saturated thereby per cycle (i.e., the etchant gas adsorbed on a surface per cycle has a one-molecule thickness on principle). When chemisorption of an etchant gas on a substrate surface occurs, high in-plane uniformity of etching can be achieved. Conventional ALE, even though it calls adsorption “chemisorption,” in fact adsorbs an etchant gas on a substrate surface (e.g., SiO2 and SiN) by physical adsorption. If adsorption of an etchant gas is chemisorption, in-plane uniformity of etching should logically be high and also the etch rate per cycle should not be affected by the flow rate of the etchant gas or the duration of a pulse of etchant gas flow after the surface is saturated by etchant gas molecules. However, none of conventional etchant gases satisfies the above.
The above and any other discussion of problems and solutions in relation to the related art has been included in this disclosure solely for the purpose of providing a context for the present invention, and should not be taken as an admission that any or all of the discussion was known at the time the invention was made.